back to reality

Last night grad school started back up. It will be so nice when we finish up our program next year. The mister and I have once again tripled up on classes, which will mean a busy semester. However, it also means that we will not have to take classes this summer. It also means that we will have a comparably light year next year. Our capstone course will require a lot of work, for sure, but we only have nine credit hours to complete over the course of the year. We just may be able to breathe a little bit.

Reality this semester also includes the implementation of the school district's turn around plan. While my principal is retiring at the end of the week, our interim principal will only be here through April. The superintendent announced yesterday at a staff meeting that the changing of principals throughout the district will take place in April, following the culmination of state testing. This way, principals will be a part of the decision making when new hires are made for next year, when goals are submitted to the district and state for next school year, and when budgets are made. It all makes sense to me, but it will also mean a lot of change for a lot of schools at the end of the school year. I guess it also means teachers will be able to decide if they want to stay at their current school with a new principal or if they want to move elsewhere prior to next school year.

With the coming of the new semester, I was also reminded of how disjointed things in our district are. One of the programs in the district provides tuition assistance for teachers seeking TESOL endorsement. I applied for this assistance in November. Yesterday, the mister received notice of a purchase order being placed for his tuition assistance, my name was not on the list. I emailed the director of this program today and she said that she must have misplaced it. I will take copies of my application over to the office today, but she cannot make any guarantees that I will receive those funds because she lost my original paperwork. Needless to say, I went to bed a little angry last night.

My anger was calmed a little though based on the fact that I received a nice little check from Target yesterday as a result of their Field Trip Grants program. In the fall I applied and our trip to the Albuquerque Zoo is now 70% funded. Yay!

get crafty

This weekend I squeezed in a lot of crafting time around the usual activities of running and cleaning. I am trying to stay on top of my crafting ideas so that I am not rushing around and stressing out when birthdays or other gift giving holidays roll around. I got started as soon as we returned from Nebraska for Christmas and have been plucking away at new projects, old projects, and for a change, me projects.

Here is a glance at what I have been working on this weekend!

One of the blogs that I follow, mooglyblog.com, is hosting an afghan-along. This is the first square of the afghan. Every two weeks a new square is revealed and at the end of the year I'll have all of the pieces needed to make a 4'x6' afghan! This is my me project, one that I'm doing just because I can.

Another project that I worked on this weekend was a baby doll for one of my nieces. Her birthday isn't for quite some time, but as I mentioned, I want to stay on top of my gift-crafting game so that I'm prepared in the event that life gets in the way when birthdays are actually here.

Here is another birthday gift for another niece. It is hard to come up with ideas for the girls as they get older, but I think that this sparkly infinity scarf is one that will please the oldest of the girls.

Last but not least, here is a project that I have been working on (verrrrry slowly) since I returned from Costa Rica. This baby blanket is for a niece that isn't a baby anymore, but she is still my baby girl. If all goes well, it will serve well for a 4th birthday present.

dismissed

This morning I had the pleasure of sitting through a jury panel selection. I was fortunate and was dismissed, though, the trial was slated to last for only a couple of hours due to the nature of the case. The whole experience was kind of interesting though.

When we arrived at the courthouse, all of us potential jurors were ushered up to a courtroom and then sat through an orientation video telling us how lucky we were to have been chosen for this civic duty. While the video had some good points, we were already there, so they didn't really need to keep telling us about how wonderful jury duty was. 

Next came the voir dire, or "interrogation" by the attorneys. This particular case involved DWI, and the comments made by potential jurors were interesting. Many stated that they would not be able to make an unbiased judgement as the result of having served time themselves for DWI and thought that if you made the "stupid judgement error" you should serve time for it, because even if nothing happened this time, it might in the future so it is best to learn the lesson right away. Some had had family members killed by drunk drivers. Many educators and parents stated that they thought that in order to set an example they would need to find the party in question guilty. Some opposed due to religious beliefs. Others simply stated that they felt that it was not their role to place judgement upon others (though they very blatantly made judging statements at other points when they were trying oh so hard to get dismissed). Throughout all of this I sat quietly, kept to myself, and tried to remain unnoticed.

In the end, my technique worked. I was not called to sit on the trial. However, each individual that was chosen to serve had spoken up at some point during the voir dire. I suppose what I learned was that when all else fails, pretend that you aren't there and maybe the attorneys will forget about you in their selection.

hustle and bustle

Tomorrow I am being blessed with the opportunity to sit through jury duty selection. As a result I was able to spend today finding ways to squeeze in weekly assessments so that they are not left to chance tomorrow under the supervision of as substitute. My class was pretty successful in their completion of these assessments, though I felt like I was hanging on by a thread forcing extra activities into an already jam-packed schedule.

After school didn't get much better. I stayed late yesterday making sure plans for next week were squared away just in case. I was hopeful for a cancellation of the jury selection though and didn't make sub plans. Therefore, I busied myself putting together plans that wouldn't kill the sub and that would keep the kinders engaged. Hopefully I was successful in this plan and everyone comes back happy on Monday. We shall see.

buckets of kindness

Prior to Christmas vacation, my kinders were getting a little snarky, and so upon our return to school I brought us back to the beginning of the school year. We revisited the book Have You Filled A Bucket Today? and talked about kindness and how we can be a more caring classroom. As a class we brainstormed different ways that we could be "bucket fillers" and started a bucket filling contest. 

This month, our student of the month will be determined based on who has been the biggest bucket filler. Each student colored a bucket and I put a wax paper pocket on the front. When students are caught being kind, caring, or considerate they earn a frog for their bucket. At the end of the month we'll count the frogs and find out who our student of the month is.

Today we had some great bucket filling activity. One student helped our new friend from Nepal on the swings, pushing her since she hadn't been on swings before. Another made sure that chairs were all pushed in when we transitioned from tables to the learning rug. We had people tying shoes and using manners. Hopefully the trend continues.

Our Kindness Buckets

six is six

When it all comes down to it, six year olds are simply that - six years old. It does not matter where they are from, what their background is, or what language they speak. They all want to have fun, make new friends, and explore everything in front of them. 

Today my new Nepali friend joined my classroom and my above statement fits her perfectly. The day started with two of my kinders coming in and saying "We're going to have a new student!" I had not told anyone yesterday about our incoming classmate because you just never know for sure if someone is going to show up. It turns out that my newest kinder's grandparents live next door to one of my students and they had spent some time jumping around on the trampoline together. Friends were made before my classroom even came into play.

My new kinder is simply amazing. She is a sweetheart and is excited to learn. She has lived in the United States for a whole 23 days and despite any worries about culture shock, she seems to be adapting quite well. While she has a thick accent, she has a solid base in spoken English and her written understanding of the language is quite phenomenal. While she may not be reading yet, she knows a lot of her letters and some of the sounds. She knows a lot of basic three letter words though and shocked Mrs. S today during centers by writing the entire word for each image on a worksheet when all that was needed was the first letter. I think we'll be getting along quite well.

As I mentioned earlier, friends were made rather quickly so my only real concern now is keeping the chit-chatting of new best friends to a minimum and to squelch the constant hand holding among said friends (the group reached six today) as it makes forming a line and walking through the hall rather difficult. If these are my biggest concerns right now, I'll take it.

new new new new

It's a new year, with new instructional strategies, tomorrow, a new student, and at the end of the month, a new principal. Life is never boring, that is for sure.

Today we had a lot of fun with the new year during calendar time. My kinders, bright as can be began telling me what each of the following years will be. They said, "next it will be 2015!" I replied, yes, when you are in first grade, it will change to 2015 in January." I then cursed the moment that those words came out of my mouth as we spent the next several minutes with them saying, "and in second grade it will be 2016, and in third 2017, etc. etc." I've got some good ones, no questions.

We shifted our language arts centers around a little bit today, and things seemed to go well. I have moved from three centers to four. This way, groups are smaller and I have added accountability to my reading groups. Now, advanced students partner read with lower level students, assisting them with sounding out words or using context clues to determine what is happening in their stories. Their next center is reading reflection where they write in their journals about one story that they read. Right now, this consists of "I read...". As the semester progresses, I think that my more advanced students will be able to add on a little more detail.

Our anchor chart for partner reading

"I read Can Melvin Scoot. Rita Ran to Rosie" One reading reflection with a picture of happy partners reading together!

At the end of our new center rotation, we debriefed how everything went. Overall, the kinders loved it. They liked reading with partners and they really liked writing about their books and drawing pictures. As of right now, I think we have a winner. We'll see how things go when they aren't so new anymore.

Another new for today was finding out that I will have a new student starting tomorrow. From Nepal. Now, between Mrs. S and I we can take care of English, Spanish, and Navajo languages. Neither of us speak Nepali though (surprising, I know). It will be a new adventure for the new year. One that I am both excited and frightened by. I'll be challenged by the fact that this little girl does not speak English and that the traditional alphabet for Nepali is Devanagari (say what?). But, I like challenges.

Does anyone out there understand the Devanagari alphabet?

My final new for the day was my principal announcing that she will be retiring in two weeks. Between state/district shake ups and family commitments, she decided that it would be best to leave now before the district requires principals to commit to five to seven more years with the district in conjunction with a turn around plan that has been set up. For now, our head teacher will be completing an internship as our interim principal, which is great. As for next year, there is no telling who might be walking through those doors with the title of principal. But honestly, as long as I am allowed to teach my kinders, I'll be able to go with the flow pretty well - but I am hooked on my kinders and don't want to leave the grade level any time in the near (read years) future.

And so, I'm heading out from school early-ish today and soaking in the new. Tomorrow I'll tackle the endless pile of paperwork/planning/organizing that comes with teaching.